Drill rod tallying system and method

A method of drilling and automatically tallying drill rods for use with a drilling machine, the method comprising:

• performing, in response to manual input from an operator, a drilling operation using the drilling machine;
• and
• while performing the drilling operation, automatically tallying drill rods of a drill string coupled to a rotary drive of the drilling machine by:
• monitoring the machine to detect a clamping force applied to immobilize a drill string and to detect a break-out torque generated by a rotary drive;
• detecting a first longitudinal position of the rotary drive at which the clamping force is applied and the break-out torque or a make-up torque is generated;
• preventing release of the clamping force until the make-up torque is generated by the rotary drive;
• detecting a second longitudinal position of the rotary drive at which the make-up torque or the break-out torque is generated by the rotary drive;
• and
• automatically allowing release of the clamping force after the make-up torque is generated by the rotary drive and updating a drill rod tally when the first longitudinal position is different than the second longitudinal position.